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Civ5 was never announced for Linux/SteamOS. It's just some websites spread rumors based on nothing.

"just some websites" happens to be the official steam website.
The "rumors" came form a screenshot used in the initial SteamOS campaign. Worst case, it it was just a reference for streaming games over a local network connection. Best case, there will be a Linux port.

It's hard to know if these efforts are really going to pan out. Valve still hasn't presented a good reason to abandon the Windows platform and the number of people willing to forfeit the console experience in the living room for a Steam Machine is probably quite limited.

I could be wrong but so far their efforts definitely haven't knocked my socks off. The results are quite mediocre (to be generous) compared to what we have today on Windows. And the only support from inside the industry seems to be coming from a few indie devs.

It'd be nice to at least get a small Source 2 demo to show off what Linux can do with modern graphics. Instead we just have these very, very awful ports that seem to confirm a lot of the widespread suspicions about Linux weaknesses.

It seems like when Valve realized that they could make millions by simply culling off a portion of a virtual hat economy, their engineering talent went completely flat. Where the hell are the games? It's hard to get excited about a company that is merely an electronic store.

It's hard to know if these efforts are really going to pan out. Valve still hasn't presented a good reason to abandon the Windows platform and the number of people willing to forfeit the console experience in the living room for a Steam Machine is probably quite limited.

I could be wrong but so far their efforts definitely haven't knocked my socks off. The results are quite mediocre (to be generous) compared to what we have today on Windows. And the only support from inside the industry seems to be coming from a few indie devs.

It'd be nice to at least get a small Source 2 demo to show off what Linux can do with modern graphics. Instead we just have these very, very awful ports that seem to confirm a lot of the widespread suspicions about Linux weaknesses.

It seems like when Valve realized that they could make millions by simply culling off a portion of a virtual hat economy, their engineering talent went completely flat. Where the hell are the games? It's hard to get excited about a company that is merely an electronic store.

Yeah let's compare Linux gaming after 2 years of Valve building a foundation by fixing drivers, implementing steam and starting to address issues with debuggers to 20 years of Windows gaming monopoly.

"And the only support from inside the industry seems to be coming from a few indie devs."

First off, yes, Michael, you were right And thanks for helping them move things forward.

As for a request: I would love for Valve to work with Crouton and Google, and team up to produce Chromebooks and Chromeboxes that will game via Steam. The main requirement is 4GB of RAM at least, and a harddrive( as opposed to 2GB RAM and 16gb SSD). Given the low resolution in these machines, a Haswell Celeron will do for most games.

As nice as that would be, Chrome OS isn't a normal Linux distro with normal utilities, and because of how all third party apps run through the web, I doubt they could even come close to supporting the platform.

I'm excited

I'm excited because the game toolkits are being ported over. All the people who are butthurt that it's not free software need to understand that the creation tools have never been free and might never be. Blender is great for some people. But many 3d artists are set in their workflows. The more tools that get ported the better Linux is at creating and hosting new games. This is only a good thing. traditionally open source games have had a severe deficiency in Art quality. This might finally change now that commercial games/toolsets are being ported.

- My first whish would be that Valve open sources their steam client like desura, while they could still close source their steam server side. I do not know if thats even possible, but it would be nice sign of their open-source commitment.
Personally I am already satisfied with what they open-sourced but big parts of the community are still suspicious.
- Second, I would like valve to team up with XBMC to get media-center stuff to SteamOS
- Third: For the official steomOS / box launch I would wish for some synced AAA-Linux-Games releases and a big marketing campaign.

I read a lot about concerns on the target group of the new "console". That it might be small. Like: Who would switch from windows-steam to SteamOS if it has less games?
I think this is not a problem at all. The SteamBox will not be something for already existing windows-steam-customers. It is soemthing designed for young new gamers that want to buy their first console and have to decide between the next-gen ones. Those new user won´t know about all the AAA-titles of the past. They would only look on the new ones compared to their android smartphone (their real first gaming console). And there Valve could present them a gaming catalogue of 400-450 games at SteamBox-Launch (hopefully with equal number of AAA) and thus they will be on par or even ahead of MS and Sony:

I'm excited because the game toolkits are being ported over. All the people who are butthurt that it's not free software need to understand that the creation tools have never been free and might never be. Blender is great for some people. But many 3d artists are set in their workflows. The more tools that get ported the better Linux is at creating and hosting new games. This is only a good thing. traditionally open source games have had a severe deficiency in Art quality. This might finally change now that commercial games/toolsets are being ported.

I would not have any problem with that if it wasn't for 0 support free software like Blender receives from the game engines SDKs.

Allowing closed software to get in freely without supporting the use of valid free software will end with free software abandoned.

Closed source tools should be banned when you can use free software without any problems. Workflow? That's not a good reason.

What's been your favorite action by Valve towards the Linux gaming community? What are you looking forward to most from Valve? Let us know as a comment to this article!

It is admirable that Valve can contribute with OpenGL debuggers and toolchain fixes, development feedback, etc.

The repo system behind Linux isn't proprietary. The repo system and DRM system for games shouldn't be proprietary either. It should be as open and as neutral as possible.

The entire premise of a proprietary company with irrationally loyal tech writers like phoronix crowning a somewhat arbitrary entity as the legal owner and rightful tool keeper over the entire games market is ridiculous.

Tech sites should be somewhat impartial and not play favorites. Pick the best technologies on their own merits.